Celebrate food, life and diversity. Join me in the search for the right ingredients: Food without human antibiotics, growth hormones and other harmful additives that have become commonplace in animals raised on factory farms.

Attention food shoppers

We are legions -- legions who are sorely neglected by the media, which prefer glorifying chefs. I love restaurants as much as anyone else, but feel that most are unresponsive to customers who want to know how the food they are eating was grown or raised.I hope my blog will be a valuable resource for helping you find the healthiest food in supermarkets, specialty stores and restaurants in northern New Jersey. In the past five years, I stopped eating meat, poultry, bread and pizza, and now focus on a heart-healthy diet of seafood, vegetables, fruit, whole-wheat pasta and brown rice. I'm happiest when I am eating. -- VICTOR E. SASSON

Monday, December 31, 2012

Editor's note: Why do I end up eating all of the leftovers? Also today, a trip to Costco yields two beautiful all-cotton shirts, and I rave over the salads at a Thai restaurant.

By VICTOR E. SASSONEDITOROn Christmas Day, I had a canned-fish salad with tuna, salmon and sardines as part of a homemade Feast of the Seven Fishes, relying on what I had on hand.

A few days later, I went looking for the canned-fish salad, and couldn't find it.

So I made more, this time adding a small dice of sweet apple to cans of pink salmon and sardines with celery, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and ground cumin.

Today, rummaging in the refrigerator for a snack, I found the first version behind several other containers.

I tried them side by side, and definitely prefer the one with the apple in it.

Leftovers don't get any respect in our house from anyone but me.

In an effort to cut down the time and work that go into home-cooked meals, I make large batches of mashed sweet potatoes, pasta with sardines, canned-fish salad, 10-grain hot cereal with dried fruit and other dishes.

But I'm the one who usually ends up eating almost all of them, as other members of the family -- the meat eaters -- chase after a fresh taste sensationalmost every night.

Even though I mentioned my intention to do so to my wife that morning, she prepared a big pot of tripe soup, and I was the only one who had spaghetti.

I ate it with leftover flounder no one but me touched after we had it for dinner one night, and my teenage son never had any of the fish.

Multi-tasking at Costco

I went to Costco Wholesale in Hackensack today for Kashi Trail Mix Chewy Granola Bars and raw, sodium-free almonds, and came home with those items and two beautiful, all-cotton shirts for only $17.99 each (photo above).

My salad days

I continue to be wowed by the salads at Wondee's, our favorite Thai restaurant (photos above).

From my own experience, I wouldadd: ditch bread and pizza.Super samplesAt the Whole Foods Market in Paramus today, I had some terrific free samples:

Breaded and fried wild-caught flounder; an avocado-and-cucumber sushi roll; and sauteed collard greens, sweet corn and broccoli from the Hudson Valley of New York State.At the butcher counter, where ground-beef sliders were on sale for $4.99 a pound, an employee grilled some and offered them to other customers.

Whole Foods usually offers free samples only on the weekends.

I picked up organic Fuji apples on sale for $1.99 a pound, and about 5 pounds of frozen organic chicken necks and feet for $2.99 and $3.99 a pound, respectively.

My wife makes soup with the chicken parts, which she usually buys at ShopRite.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

With Costco Wholesale's fresh, wild-caught fillets and a few bottles and cans in your cupboard, you can turn out fish dinners in under 30 minutes.No need for a recipe. A can opener and a large pan with a glass cover is all the equipment you need.

My Costco in Hackensack usually offers wild-caught fillets of haddock from Iceland and flounder from Canada, as well as meaty cod from the Pacific, all for $6.99 or $7.99 a pound.

I try to buy fish that is packed the same day, as indicated on the Costco label, and I usually can buy a package with under 2 pounds of fillets for 4 people.

Flounder fillets with leftover brown rice and prepared tofu.

For any fresh fish fillet, you can open cans of Kirkland Signature Organic Tomato Sauce and Organic Diced Tomatoes, empty them into the pan and add white wine, lime or lemon juice, garlic powder, red-pepper flakes and dried Italian seasonings.

Bring to a boil under a partial cover. Meanwhile, season the fillets with Kirkland Signature Organic No-Salt Seasoning.

Turn down the heat to medium, add the fish fillets and cover.

Through a glass cover, you can watch the fish turn white and firm up. The skinless fillets should be ready in about 20 minutes.

A second preparation uses a bottle of Goya or La Costena Mexican Green Salsa,a can of organic diced tomatoes and lime or lemon juice.

Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to medium, add the fish fillets and cover.

I like to make big batches of organic brown rice in an electric cooker -- with or without cooked black beans and organic diced tomatoes -- or mashed sweet potatoes and Kabocha squash with olive oil and seasonings, and keep them in the refrigerator to eat with the fish.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss a Trader Joe's in Manhattan, and how recycling doesn't have to stop at plastic shopping bags.

A man standing on the long checkout line Fridayat a popular Trader Joe's in Manhattan turned to the woman behind him and asked if the store carried wine.

Soon, she mentioned she was from Portland, Maine, and he said he was from Boston, and they compared notes on wine sales at Trader Joe's in those cities.

I chimed in I was from New Jersey.

I praised this Trader Joe's on Sixth Avenue and West 21st Street for having the same prices as the store in Paramus I usually shop in.

I had stopped there to buy three 1-pound packages of Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti at $1.39 each.

When cooked, the 100% whole-wheat spaghetti is indistinguishable from conventional pasta, and it's sodium-free.

Trader Joe's Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti at the Chlesea store.

Recycling wars

The wrappers from Trader Joe's spaghetti, Kashi bars, spicy Korean soup and ice cream, and the plastic bags my daily newspaper comes in all end up in a plastic shopping bag for recycling at ShopRite supermarkets.

I also recycle all of the plastic food wrapping from Costco Wholesale, which often bundles two or three containers of soup, mustard,ketchup, extra-virgin olive oil and other products.

The filmy plastic from the dry cleaners also ends up in the plastic shopping bag.

Even the plastic wrap from Costco's fresh fish fillets go into the bag after they dry out on the counter.

Left to right, plastic bags from the newspaper, ice cream and dried coconut milk.

We had plenty of salted cod fish for a fluffy frittata with whole organic eggs, low-fat milk and shredded Italian cheese, topped with fresh and sun-dried tomatoes, and pesto, and finished under the broiler.

In the freezer, I also had a box of New Zealand Green Lip mussels, which I popped into the oven for about 15 minutes (under the broiler).

A slice of the cod-fish frittata was my second course, followed by a big plate of mussels, vegetables and organic brown rice with black beans and organic diced tomatoes prepared in an electric cooker.

Rice, beans and diced tomatoes went into an electric cooker at the same time.

I should have stopped there, but to get to seven fishes, I had to have a few jumbo shrimp and a piece of salted mackerel filletwith plum concentrate I found at H Mart, a Korean supermarket, and put in the freezer.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes, which originates in Italy, is usually eaten on Christmas Eve.

I threw together my seafood mini-feast after our plans for a multi-course Christmas dinner for 8 at Lotus Cafe in Hackensack fell through when our guests cancelled.

When I mentioned that plan to another friend, he said it reminded him of "A Christmas Story," a movie about a family that had their Christmas dinner in a Chinese restaurant.

I had never seen the film, so I recorded and watched it, discovering a couple of disturbing scenes (see photos below).

"A Christmas Story" is a 1983 film based on a Jean Shepherd screenplay. In this scene at a Chinese restaurant, the waiters' inability to pronounce the letter "r" is mocked.

Here, the restaurant owner has just hacked off the neck and head of the duck the family would be having for Christmas dinner after their turkey was eaten by stray dogs.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Editor's note: The original post said "On Saturday afternoon" and "Saturday" in places, but it was written today, the day before Christmas, and I've corrected it.

This afternoon, Belarmino Rico, wife Maria, their children, grandchildren and the employees of the Cuban sandwich shop known as La Pola were in the final lap of their annual holiday marathon."Rico," as everyone calls him, had taken orders for hundreds of hams, ribs, whole pigs and all the tradtional Cuban side dishes, and customers were coming by to say hello and pick up their Christmas dinners.Ricohad a big smile on his face as he wished everyone, "Feliz Navidad."

When the shop closes late this afternoon or evening, the entire Rico family and their employees will collapse into bed after nearly a week of frantic preparations.

The small shop at Palisade Avenue and 54th Street echoes with holiday greetings.

The canister contains 56 servings for just under 25 cents per serving, not counting the cost of milk.

Salads, fruit and other healthy food on the New Jersey Turnpike.

I didn't think there was much healthy food at the Thomas A. Edison Service Area of the New Jersey Turnpike until Monday, when I discovered a refrigerated case with salads, fruit and other nutritious food.

The case is between Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits and Sbarro, which sells pizza and other pricey Italian-American fare.

Only the food court in the northbound lanes is open (between Exits 11 and 12).

How many ways can you say, "Thank you"?

If you want to learn how to say "Thank you!" and "How are you?" in different languages, you'll find a lesson above the entrance to H&Y Marketplace in a shopping center on Washington Avenue in Bergenfield.

In almost every way, this Korean supermarket is inferior to any of the H Marts, so the lesson is just about the only reason to go there.